Abstract

In recent years, funders, politicians and commentators have emphasised the need to evaluate the impact of arts projects, but often this evaluation has not been as objective as it may appear. Eleonora Belfiore asks whether weve been overstating the case for the arts.

This short paper is based on a book-length paper entitled Rethinking the Social Impacts of the Arts: A
critical historical review, which is available to download, free of charge from the Centre for Cultural
Policy Studies’ web site: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/theatre_s/cp/publications/centrepubs/.